For regular listeners you’ll now that I ask my guests the same question at the end of each episode of Climb In Consulting. I find these answers hugely beneficial for my own career and I know that many of you do too.

Earlier in the series I did a recap episode where I distilled all of my guests advice in to one, consise, episode. Last time I did this it got some great feedback so I wanted to do it again to give you a second dose of career advice from some of the best in our industry.

As a recap, or for those of you who may not have listened to any of my other interviews before, the question that these guests are answering asks for one piece of advice for three different people:

The first is someone who's just starting their career in Consulting - anywhere from 0 to 2 years in.

The second is for someone 'in the middle' of their Consulting career - 4 - 6 years in to Consulting.

The third is for someone who's approaching Partner or considering going out on their own to create their own business.

Today’s guest is Dave Kelly, CEO and co-founder of Storm Consulting, Chairman of CiteAB and non-executive director at I Am compliant.

Storm are a software consultancy that help clients create web apps, digital platforms and website designs to engage their audience, elevate their brand, and ultimately grow their business.

Dave’s story is a truly unique one and having got to know Dave over the last couple of month I knew he’d make a fantastic guest for this show.

Unlike many of my guests who’ve started their businesses having spent years in their field Dave and his co-founder Adam launched Storm, straight out of university, deciding that they’d give it a go and if it all went wrong they’d call it a gap year and go back to the graduate milk round.

Needless to say it worked out for them and Storm is now a thriving consultancy with clients ranging from cutting edge start ups to global brands including Samsung, Yamaha and Ubisoft

I regularly get messages from listeners considering what to do after they leave university and in this interview Dave shares some great insights on launching your own business and why doing it straight out of university may be one of the best opportunities you have.

This interview isn’t just for new graduates though. In growing Storm Dave and his co-founder Adam have built a successful business based on practices that many would not think could work in Consulting, including not working Friday afternoons and unlimited holiday allowances. We go in to detail on Dave’s management philosophy during this conversation and why practices like these and the principles that underpin them have helped Storm achieve the success it has.

I really enjoyed this conversation with Dave and it was fascinating to hear how he’s successfully built the business that he wants and a business that clients love while shunning the norms of the traditional consulting model. I hope you enjoy it.

This episode is brought to you by Create Engage the Digital Marketing agency for the disruptive Management Consultancy.

Digital Marketing has moved forward, but most consulting firms haven’t. Many Consulting firms still see their corporate blog as their sole Digital Marketing channel and find themselves frustrated when these blogs yield little if any results.

To help those of you who want to harness the power of Digital Marketing to grow your Consulting Business but don’t have the knowledge, capacity or in-house capability to do so I launched Create Engage, the first Digital Marketing agency for the Management Consulting Industry.

If you’d like to find out more about how Create Engage can help you use Digital Marketing to take your business to the next level then drop me an email at Nick@CreateEngage.co.uk or go to our website www.createengage.co.uk where you can download our free case study that breaks down down the Digital Marketing strategies used by one successful Consulting firm to help them grow over 400% in just 3 years and gives you the secrets they used, so that you can apply them in your own firm.

Today’s guest is Charlie Hodgson, former England international and Saracens number 10 and founder of Charlie Hodgson Performance, his leadership coaching business.

As a professional rugby player Charlie achieved everything you could want to over his 16 year career. He won multiple premiership titles with his club Saracens, played for England and went on the 2005 Lions tour. If this wasn’t enough, he is also the all-time record point scorer in the premiership with 2,625 points scored. To put this into perspective if you don’t follow rugby, the closest player too him who’s still playing professionally has 1,569 points – almost a 1,000 points behind Charlie.

As I’ve said before on this podcast I’m a big believer that you can and should learn from the best, regardless of their industry, and sport is no different. Given the hyper competitive nature of elite sport, teams are always looking for an edge and given Saracens success over recent years it was fascinating to sit down with Charlie and get his first-hand insights and advice of what led them to be so successful.

Since retiring from professional rugby Charlie has combined his experience of developing winning teams at the top level of elite rugby with his coaching training and launched Charlie Hodgson Performance to help executives and their teams leverage the leadership principles from professional sport to develop their own high performing cultures.

Charlie shares so many fascinating insights from both his sporting and business careers in this interview including:

How his club Saracens were able to go from a midtable side to the best team in the league and the off field changes they made that were critical to this success.

The importance of developing a positive and supportive culture in your organisation and the key elements to consider if you want to develop your own high performing team.

How you can break down barriers between the different areas in your organisation and start to help your teams work together better.

And much much more!

It was great to get the chance to sit down with someone who has spent so long at the top of elite sport and learn what it takes to succeed at that level, both individually and as a team. There’s so much in this conversation that you can apply to your career and your business and I know you’re going to get a lot from what Charlie has to say.

This episode is brought to you by Create Engage the Digital Marketing agency for the disruptive Management Consultancy.

Digital Marketing has moved forward, but most consulting firms haven’t. Many Consulting firms still see their corporate blog as their sole Digital Marketing channel and find themselves frustrated when these blogs yield little if any results.

To help those of you who want to harness the power of Digital Marketing to grow your Consulting Business but don’t have the knowledge, capacity or in-house capability to do so I launched Create Engage, the first Digital Marketing agency for the Management Consulting Industry.

If you’d like to find out more about how Create Engage can help you use Digital Marketing to take your business to the next level then drop me an email at Nick@CreateEngage.co.uk or go to our website www.createengage.co.uk where you can download our free case study that breaks down down the Digital Marketing strategies used by one successful Consulting firm to help them grow over 400% in just 3 years and gives you the secrets they used, so that you can apply them in your own firm.

Julie is one of the UK’s most experienced female business leaders having held numerous executive and non-executive positions on the boards of many well known FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 companies over the last 20 years.

Julie is currently non-executive director of Ebiquity plc and Senior Independent Director of Marshall of Cambridge. In addition to these roles she has established the Hughes Hall Centre for Climate Change Engagement at Cambridge University, something we discuss in today’s show.

Before moving in to her portfolio career she was a partner at Accenture, Executive Director at The Woolwich and has been on the boards of Harvey Nash, Greggs, and the Department of Health to name but a few.

I was introduced to Julie by former guest of the show Harry Gaskell who worked for Julie before she left Consulting. Given her wealth of experience and current area of focus he thought she’d make an excellent guest for the show and he was certainly right about that.

Today’s episode is rather different to some of my other conversations and instead of going in to detail on Julie’s career we focus on an important topic that Julie is hugely passionate about and one that will be critical for Consultants and their clients over the coming years and that is climate change.

In addition to her non-executive roles Julie is currently leading a series of initiatives with investors, scientists and advisors to help Board chairs and non-executive directors recognise the impact that climate change is going to have on their businesses and the importance of doing their part to reduce the environment impact of their businesses.

With her substantial board level experience Julie brings a pragmatic business lens to the climate change conversations and in this episode we go in to huge detail about why helping tackle climate change is a sound strategic business decision and why Consultants should be focusing on this as an offering for their clients.

Our conversation really opened my eyes to some of the challenges that businesses are facing when it comes to climate change and how Consultants can, and should, be looking to support their clients with this, both to help the planet but also to help their profits.

This episode is brought to you by Create Engage the Digital Marketing agency for the disruptive Management Consultancy.

Digital Marketing has moved forward, but most consulting firms haven’t. Many Consulting firms still see their corporate blog as their sole Digital Marketing channel and find themselves frustrated when these blogs yield little if any results.

To help those of you who want to harness the power of Digital Marketing to grow your Consulting Business but don’t have the knowledge, capacity or in-house capability to do so I launched Create Engage, the first Digital Marketing agency for the Management Consulting Industry.

If you’d like to find out more about how Create Engage can help you use Digital Marketing to take your business to the next level then drop me an email at Nick@CreateEngage.co.uk or go to our website www.createengage.co.uk where you can download our free case study that breaks down down the Digital Marketing strategies used by one successful Consulting firm to help them grow over 400% in just 3 years and gives you the secrets they used, so that you can apply them in your own firm.